Bakers vs robots is the wrong debate: why food automation is becoming hybrid by necessity

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A lot of “automation stories” get told like a simple battle: machines versus people. But in food manufacturing — especially anything involving sticky caramel, fragile dough, hygiene rules, and brand nostalgia — the real question is different:

Where does automation create value without destroying the product’s identity?

The BBC’s reporting on biscuit and bread production makes the trade-off concrete. Small and mid-sized producers aren’t trying to become fully robotic factories. They’re trying to build hybrid lines: machines for repeatable, high-volume steps, humans for the messy parts where judgement and adaptability still beat precision.

The constraint nobody outside the factory sees: variability

Robots love consistency. Food rarely provides it.

The BBC describes the basic problem in baking: even on a well-run production line, cakes and loaves are not identical objects. They can be:

  • slightly off-centre
  • slightly domed
  • slightly oval
  • a bit higher or lower

Those differences can be tiny — and still enough to break a rigid automation setup.

That’s why so much food automation ends up depending on the unglamorous technologies behind the robot arm:

  • scanning
  • machine vision
  • safety systems
  • real-time adjustment

In practice, “robotics in food” is often “robotics plus perception.”

Tunnock’s: tradition as a production requirement, not a marketing line

Tunnock’s is a useful case study because it sits in a competitive squeeze:

  • it’s smaller than the snack giants
  • it needs output to survive
  • it also sells a product whose appeal is memory and tradition

The BBC describes caramel as a bottleneck:

  • it takes experienced workers to judge consistency “on sight and feel”
  • a team spreads caramel in multiple layers on wafers
  • caramel is sticky and difficult to handle

The detail matters because it shows why full automation isn’t always the obvious win.

Even when machines can do a job, humans can still be better on:

  • flexibility
  • space usage
  • rapid adjustment when conditions change

That’s not romantic. It’s operational reality.

Why “automate everything” often fails in food

There are at least four practical reasons automation is harder in food than in, say, electronics:

  1. Hygiene
    Machines must be easy to take apart and clean. The BBC quotes a blunt rule: if it isn’t easy to dismantle, it won’t be cleaned properly.

  2. Material behaviour
    Caramel, dough, cream, and toppings are not stable parts. They flow, stick, deform, and change with temperature and humidity.

  3. Product variation
    Even a “standard” cake can vary enough to confuse automation.

  4. Brand constraints
    Some things are deliberately “inefficient” because they signal tradition (like packaging that’s folded rather than sealed).

So the best automation is selective.

The new generation of bakery robots: speed with “soft” control

The BBC discusses a robot arm designed for cake decoration.

What’s interesting isn’t that a robot can pipe toppings — industrial food has used machines for decades.

What’s interesting is what the new systems are trying to solve:

  • variability in placement
  • hygiene and cleanability
  • accommodating imperfections without constant human intervention

This is where robotics is heading in many industries: not just doing a motion, but tolerating real-world mess.

Bread: the case where hands still win

At The Bread Factory (supplying Gail’s and others), the BBC describes a large operation producing tens of thousands of loaves a day — and still relying on skilled hands for shaping.

Why?

Because some dough is “delicate” (depending on flour and sustainable farming methods), and shaping is not just geometry — it’s pressure, timing, and feel.

This is an important correction to simplistic “AI will replace jobs” narratives:

  • automation is strongest where the world is predictable
  • humans remain strongest where the world is adaptive

Bread is adaptive.

The economics layer: automation is capital, and capital is constrained

One of the most honest parts of the BBC piece is the admission that investment decisions depend on the financial environment.

If cocoa prices are volatile and margins are uncertain, spending millions on new equipment becomes harder to justify.

That highlights a reality about automation adoption:

  • it’s not just “can we automate?”
  • it’s “can we finance it right now without increasing risk?”

This is why many industries end up with a patchwork of old and new equipment: not because they’re irrational, but because capital cycles are lumpy.

What a “hybrid model” really means

A Forrester analyst quoted by the BBC argues for a hybrid approach:

  • automate where consistency, speed, and volume matter
  • keep core value-add elements human

That’s the right mental model.

The trick is governance:

  • deciding which steps are “core value” vs “commodity process”
  • designing lines so humans and machines don’t fight each other
  • training staff to supervise and intervene effectively

In other words, the hybrid model isn’t a compromise. It’s an operating system.

What to watch next

  1. Vision + scanning maturity in food robotics (this is where capability jumps happen).
  2. Cleaning time: if robots increase cleaning burden, the ROI collapses.
  3. Product quality drift: if automation changes the “feel” of a legacy product, customer trust can drop.
  4. Labour market dynamics: the future is less “no workers” and more “different skills” (operators, maintainers, process technicians).
  5. Capital constraints: volatility in ingredients and energy prices will continue to shape automation investment.

Bottom line

Automation won’t “trump tradition” in bakeries. It will be used to protect tradition by making the rest of the operation efficient enough to survive.

The winners will be the companies that treat robotics as a tool for consistency — while keeping humans where food still requires judgement, flexibility, and a feel for materials that machines haven’t mastered yet.

Sources

n English